I’m mostly excited, but also a little scared.

I’m excited, because not in my lifetime has there been a musical act that so collectively captured the hearts and ears of a generation of young women and so decisively dominated the pop charts, selling over 12 million records. The British boy band One Direction has the requisite charm and good looks seized upon by frenzied fans, a U-Pick assortment of attractive would-be boyfriends tailor-made to satisfy the world’s teenyboppers wielding wallets as deep as their devotion. Like their British Invasion predecessors before them, One Direction has effectively conquered the English-speaking music world.

This is what scares me. Not the threat One Direction poses to “authenticity” in music, with their brand of calculated your-face-here love songs blatantly marketed to teenage girls. Instead, I’m afraid One Direction may not realize just how powerful a force for cultural change they could be, and squander the greatest opportunity for a musical revolution of the new millennium. I’m afraid my generation will lose the chance to experience its very own Swinging Sixties, a period where music transcended the realm of entertainment to become not simply the soundtrack to, but the arbiter of one of the most progressive eras in history.

The phenomenon of build-a-teen-idol is nothing new; what’s newer is musical groups writing and performing their own songs. It was only with the rise of rock n’ roll that lyrics and instrumentation created within a group became the norm. Today, ravaged by online pirating and slumping sales the music industry is relying on a small number of popular songwriters to produce the vast majority of Top 40 music. Essentially, it has cultivated a musical landscape strikingly similar to that of sixty years ago, pre-Rock and Roll. All our generation needs is our very own Beatles, a watershed group to launch a musical Renaissance paving the way for a flood of talent to follow.

I believe One Direction is this band.

The similarities between grandpa and grandson are striking; both embody the youthful best of the pop music of their time, sparking sexual frenzy in teens and conquering America courtesy of their legions of devoted British fans. While One Direction has so far followed their predecessors’ steps faithfully, the Invasion bands before them proved historical impact can only come when an artist forges a unique path on their journey towards an innovative sound.

The blueprint-busting impact of The Beatles in particular highlights the global impact possible when a hit-making group is given the creative license to explore new avenues of inspiration, from American R&B to Eastern mysticism. This freedom allowed the band to produce ground-breaking albums that were as much historical events as records. The success of The Beatles prodded wary record companies to mine the world for “the next Beatles”, the trickle-down effect launched by the Fab Four clearing the way for equally talented bands like The Rolling Stones. The Beatles took full advantage of the spotlight cast on them, defying their fellow artists to challenge their undisputed reign over popular music. This dare resulted in pop culture’s Golden Age.

One Direction has already proven it has the world’s attention. They are hit-makers, they are young, and they’ve expressed a willingness to become more than the next *NSYNC. I’m afraid One Direction might not change music as we know it. But I’m excited, because they more than any other group today have the best shot.

This article appeared in a condensed and edited form on BlogUT here. 

My second year of university began with one of the most disconcerting phone conversations I’ve ever had with my parents. Huddled in the corner of my barely-unpacked bedroom in a strange city, I faced two hysterical voices, each asking the same thing: “What are you doing with your life? And my money?”

These are questions that any student pursuing a degree in the humanities has likely had to answer at some point during their post-secondary career. They usually stem from the emerging viewpoint of university as a one-stop-shop for knowledge that must be absorbed within the allotted time it takes to earn a degree. This runs counter to the traditional function of a liberal arts education, which gives students the tools to learn, understand and synthesize information.

The growing push for skills training in higher education has been criticized by some as a ploy by employers to get students to pay for training through the higher education system that, in the past, workplaces would have provided upon hiring. This trend reflects a new reality in which employers are afraid to invest in university graduates — a significantly exacerbated problem for students of the liberal arts. This is the root of the issue many STEM program advocates have with the humanities: while all university degrees are an investment in an individual’s potential, the prospective return for employers in hiring individuals trained with tangible skills is much less murky than trying to quantify the value of the soft skills taught in the humanities.

This, then, is the most essential task of the liberal-arts graduate: to articulate the value of their skills to employers — the failure to do so leading to the struggle many graduates have in securing meaningful employment.

The liberal arts are increasingly viewed as selfish, superfluous decorations on the foundation built by skilled trades. Humanities students have been taught to do two things: to read a text, and to produce an argument. The humanities are only a selfish discipline if its graduates do not use the skills and knowledge that they have acquired to create tangible products that benefit society. This is what the most successful among us do; they create public policy for government, curricula for schools, and books that add to the canon of available human intellect. As degenerative as it may seem, liberal arts graduates need to make their case for their place in society, and they do this by creating things that are of benefit to the wider world and the employers looking to hire them.

I do not make this case by insisting that while a liberal arts education lasts a lifetime, technical skills will be out of date in 10 years and those trained in them will be reduced to an intellectual square one when this happens, for this is simply not true. Knowledge does not expire; just like the liberal arts student, technical tradesmen are always learning too. They start with a solid practical foundation that can be updated with certifications and additional credentials to suit the times, while the critique that most liberal arts students must face is that their education does not provide this sort of foundation.

I do not make this case by justifying my education, as Mark Edmundson of The Chronicle Review does — a solitary pursuit in which the liberal arts student uses her education “to try to figure out how to live … to major, quite simply, in becoming a person.” This image of a self-absorbed student who views education as a personal gift, beholden to no one, is a stain on the inherent capacities of the humanities to enable anyone and everyone to lead a more informed, enjoyable life. It is not simply learning for learning’s sake, but learning for the sake of enabling others to learn as well.

As David Wong so succinctly put: “If you want to know why society seems to shun you, or why you seem to get no respect, it’s because society is full of people who need things… People have needs and thus assign value to the people who meet them.”

That humanities graduates are capable and intelligent members of society is not in question; it is their place in society that is. It is our job to prove the value of the liberal arts to the wider world — through our tangible application of the skills of creation we learned in university — by making accessible, understandable, and enjoyable the information that empowers all humans as informed participants of a democratic society.

 This article appeared in The Varsity here. 

Among the hardest parts of adjusting to student life is finding a rental property to call home. As September approaches, students are scouring classifieds and attending back-to-back viewings looking for the perfect place to live. To help make your search a little easier, here are some tips for effective house hunting in Toronto.

Starting your search

Begin your search no more than two months before your intended move-in date. Tenants must give 60 days notice before ending their lease, and properties are often rented within the first weeks of coming on the market.

Consider too what you have more of to burn: time or money. In most cases, spending more money means living closer to campus. Spend less money, and you will likely spend more time commuting. Look for a rental within a 15-minute transit commute of downtown and you will find more spacious and inexpensive places, but will have to budget for time and transportation costs. If you’ll be purchasing a monthly Metropass regardless of your living situation, consider living further away from campus — the savings will make a longer commute worth it.

Regardless of how much time you spend checking listings and diligently refreshing your online searches, it can sometimes feel like few ideal options will come on the market during your search. However, don’t get discouraged. Just be prepared to jump on a rental quickly.

Some popular websites for house hunting are Kijiji, Craiglist, Viewit and Padmapper. Avoid MLS, as it mostly advertises rentals that are so run-down the landlord needed to hire a real estate agent to let it.

Viewing potential homes

When viewing rentals, have the necessary documentation to close the deal on hand or risk losing the place to better-prepared buyers. Here is what you should consider having in your portfolio to present to a landlord:

• A filled-out generic copy of a lease — this is a good way to prevent surprises and forgotten information come deal time.
• References/Resume — sell yourself as the perfect tenant! Be sure to let references know to expect a call, and get their contact information early.
• A bank statement showing that first and last month’s rent is in your account (most banks no longer provide reference letters).
• A recent pay stub from your job to show you have a steady source of income.

A landlord may ask for a credit card or SIN number, but you are not required to give this information to them.

It may sound trivial, but be sure to get the name, address, phone number, email address, and preferable times to contact a landlord. This information is often not listed online.

If possible, book as many rental viewings as you can in one day. It takes less than 10 minutes to realize a place isn’t right for you. There are lists available online with questions to ask landlords over email or phone before viewing a rental if you can arrange to do so. You can often decide if a place doesn’t sound right for you without having to make a trip to see it.

Before signing the lease

A place is not yours until the landlord has money in his or her hands. Be prepared with either cash or a certified cheque (not personal, as it could bounce) at all times or risk losing out on a potential rental. Technically, a verbal lease agreement is binding in court as long as a witness is present, but most landlords will provide a written one both for their records and yours. Be wary of any landlord who wants only a verbal agreement.

On-site, don’t rush. If you’re given some time to check out your potential pad, take it. Look for any obvious issues or more subtle red flags, such as ceiling stains that could indicate water leaks. Once you commit, the place is your home, so take the time to ensure you will be comfortable there.

This article appeared in The Varsity here. 

Six days of addictively skimming Buzzfeed listicles (whose uplifting final points can’t seem to redeem many articles for their irritating assumption that most twenty-somethings are incompetent degenerates) makes the thud of the Sunday New York Times sound even heavier on my kitchen table. The transition from reading “21 Things Sassy People Wish Everyone Else Understood” to “Our Thoroughly Modern Enemies: ISIS in the 21st Century” seems like a seismic shift, the similarities between these two articles beginning and ending with the numbers in their titles.

Print traditionalists claim the listicle – a medium supposedly tailored for the quickly-shrinking attention spans of young people as a replacement for in-depth journalism – has risen in popularity on the back of a dead print industry.

But is Cracked really usurping The New Yorker? No.

Buzzfeed is not a replacement for traditional print journalism the same way a book review is not a replacement for reading a novel. Few would take this scanning news-bite coverage as an end for deeper understanding of any issue. As Stephen Hull of The Huffington Post UK put it, “Most of our listicles explain an issue and act as an add-on to a meatier story that uses a traditional journalism format, whereby you can build additional content around an important issue.”

The listicle rose as a tightly-contained information format meant for low-commitment reading on smartphones – essentially, brief and structured writing for brief and structured time. Much criticism has been levied by journos angry that listicles do not aspire to the echelons of print-style reporting: “Yes, the news section [of Buzzfeed] is nice and they have done some decent reporting, but it’s sort of like McDonald’s selling salads. It is far too little, and far too late,” says Ben Cohen of The Daily Banter. And so it goes that critics complain when Buzzfeed does not boast a reputable news section, and when it does, nitpicks that the site hasn’t forced its presence onto users who are mostly looking for listicles telling them how much of a 90s kid they are.

The appeal of the listicle is this: the voice behind the writing. The writer themselves is strongly present in any list featuring their personal opinion on the top-whatever of a subject. Many listicles encourage readers to insert themselves directly into the reading process to discover, for example, which Disney Princess they’re most like. This is a striking departure from the deliberately-distancing robot-voice demanded by most print journalism, the intent being to relate stories with as little bias as possible. Just as human brains are programmed to see faces in car headlights, we are inclined to connect more with the person behind a listicle than a newspaper article, especially when that person is us.

The idea that traditional print journalism is dead echoes the similarly widespread notion that “no good music exists today” propagated by those who have never tuned their radio beyond 99.9. If the internet has given us listicles, it has also launched a growing number of independent news sites featuring hard-hitting and reputable journalism, such as Vice, Geist, and Maisonneuve.

Italian writer Umberto Eco claims the function of the listicle is “to make infinity comprehensible…and create order”, proving for the umpteenth time philosophy’s obsession with over-analysing that which was specifically created to elicit the most flighty of pleasurable interactions, the listicle’s status as the one-night-stand of the literary world wrongly shoved into contention with The Brothers Karamazov.

So if the in-depth journalism of a Globe and Mail Focus piece is the dinner of our news-reading habits, no meal would be complete without a frothy listicle that is both intensely entertaining and delightfully unsatisfying. In the end, print journalism and the list each serve their own purpose, complementing one another to the detriment of neither.

This article appeared in The Varsity here.